What are some of your favorite wine and mead recipes? Have you had
any experiments that got rave reviews?

The one thing I've made that everyone seems to like is an Acer mead
made with:
- 1qt Grade B Maple Syrup
- 1 lb honey, any variety
- 1/4 cup Turbinado sugar
- Acid Blend, approximately 1/2 to 1 tsp.
- 1/4 tsp tannin, optional
- 1/2 tsp yeast nutrient
- water to bring volume to 1 gallon.

Any special concoctions you wish to share?

Greg

On Jan 10, 9:55*am, wrote:
> What are some of your favorite wine and mead recipes? *Have you had
> any experiments that got rave reviews?
>
> The one thing I've made that everyone seems to like is an Acre mead
> made with:
> - 1qt Grade B Maple Syrup
> - 1 lb honey, any variety
> - 1/4 cup Turbinado sugar
> - Acid Blend, approximately 1/2 to 1 tsp.
> - 1/4 tsp tannin, optional
> - 1/2 tsp yeast nutrient
> - water to bring volume to 1 gallon.
>
> Any special concoctions you wish to share?
>
> Greg

How about what not to do? We made a mead with lemon zest and zested
too aggressively and got some pith in there in 1998. It's still
awful, that bitter pith ruined it. It may end up vinegar this summer,
I'm sick of trying it, hating it, waiting another year...

I had a horrible raspberry wine fiasco that tasted closer to Vick's 44
than wine; I bought some supposedly unferemented juice that turned out
to be completely fermented by the time I I got it home the next day.

I blended in a couple gallons of mead and some neutral whites and went
from 5 gallons to 17 by the time I was done; I would blend, taste,
hate it, wait... and start again. At that point I was committed;
there was no turning back. It flew out of the cellar once I bottled
it, I thought it was just OK at bottling but people just loved it.

Joe

My best recipe to date is a Traditional Mead fermented with Wyeast
1056 American Ale yeast. It only went to 10%, but I knew that going
in, and personally that's about where I like my meads to be anyway.
The result is a semi sweet mead, good solid body but not viscous, with
a very nice floral and fruit character from the yeast. Really the
yeast is the star here, with very nice fruity esters in the flavor,
while not overpowering the honey. Fermented clean, dropped crystal
clear, and was done within two months. My only regret is I made only a
single gallon

2.5 lbs clover honey (dissolved in 180 degree water)
1 Wyeast 1056 Smack Pack
Yeast nutrient
Spring Water to one gallon


mike